Cross-Dressing
In fact, because of the Eastern expedition of a Foundation Establishment-level cultivator that had been discovered years ago, the elders of several sects—including our master, the Immortal of Blue Purity—had been so busy they were nearly impossible to see at all.
Even I could count on one hand the number of times I had faced Master Blue Purity in person.
Because of that, internal management within the sect had grown so lax that even filthy little private gatherings like Dark Dust Market had sprung up. And there was no way my greedy second brother would let an opportunity like that slip by.
With a shake of my head, I looked at him and went on, “Yes. My brother really is amazing.”
Whether he took that as sincere praise or not, he grinned and suddenly held out the lip rouge in his hand.
“You just realized that? Then try this first. It’s something officials used before entering the palace, you know? The cinnabar powder inside makes your lips a brighter red, and the sticky part is supposed to protect them.”
Of course, I knew what lip rouge was.
What I couldn’t understand was why I had to use it.
So instead of answering, I pressed my lips together and stared at him, and he went on again.
“Don’t you know face-changing art? If we’re bringing something to Dark Dust Market, it can’t be some ordinary trinket. Low-level cultivators like us are hardly ever even allowed to see things like that. If word got out that we had some incredible treasure and couldn’t find the right buyer there, what then? We have to look as unlike ourselves as possible. Put the rouge on your lips, stick a hairpin in your hair, and if possible, wear a loose robe too.”
In other words, he was suggesting that we cross-dress to hide our identities. Lip rouge was something both men and women could use, but if you added a hairpin and clothing into the mix, just as he said, the result would be unmistakably feminine.
Admittedly, the idea of disguising myself as a woman bothered me a little. Still, like my second brother said, I agreed that we needed to hide our identities.
“Of course we need to conceal who we are. But what are you going to do about our voices? Unless we plan to keep our mouths shut the whole time, they’ll know we’re men eventually. Besides, if we’re wearing masks anyway, there’s no point in using the lip rouge.”
“Wooden masks usually make your voice hard to hear, so a lot of them don’t even cover the area below the nose. And you don’t need to worry about your voice at all, little brother. This older sister has it handled. Hohoho~”
At his words—his voice turning coy in a way that sounded just like a woman’s—my hand moved before I could stop it, reaching for the hilt of my sword.
But I forced myself to calm the storm in my chest and spoke instead.
“Hoo… Fine. Then I’ll leave everything to you, and just stand guard at your side.”
As if he had been waiting for that, my brother immediately held out the rouge again.
“Good timing. I was curious what this would look like on Dong-a so I’m glad. Hurry up and bite it with your lips.”
With another quiet sigh, I took the red, paper-like rouge he held out and lightly pressed it to my lips, then pulled it away.
At that moment, my brother took out a wooden half-mask that covered the upper half of the face. The fact that he had prepared something like this in advance could only mean he had already visited Dark Dust Market before.
Still, I pretended not to notice and accepted it, putting it on my face. Since we had already decided to do this, there was no need to waste time.
Then his hands became bolder. He took two wooden chopsticks and stuck them into my neatly tied hair, arranging them like the ornaments women used.
All that remained was to throw on a loose robe, and the disguise would be complete. Yet for some reason, my brother just stood there, staring at me in silence after planting the chopsticks in my hair.
Thinking I could guess what he was thinking, I spoke up.
“The imitation of a woman stands out too much, doesn’t it? Our goal is to hide our identities, not to look like real women, so it doesn’t matter that much.”
But the moment he heard me, my brother shook his head and said something shocking.
“No, it’s just that you’re prettier than I expected. If we had a little sister, she really would’ve been beautiful.”
Even if my hair, which had returned to black as my cultivation grew, should one day turn white again, I would never forget this moment.
Because today was the day I nearly killed my brother with my own hands twice.
＊＊＊
“Junior brother, it’ll be Chou hour soon. Dark Dust Market is about to open in that vacant lot.”
My brother’s soft, feminine voice, carried from the moment we stepped outside wearing our masks, was still hard to get used to, but I did my best to remain calm and nodded.
Just then I sensed someone’s presence and turned my gaze that way. A cultivator wearing a carefully crafted white mask quickly moved from the brush opposite us to the center of the clearing and opened his mouth.
“The law of Dark Dust Market is simple. If you want what you seek, prepare the price. The trade begins now!”
At that moment, someone else suddenly cut through the air nearby and sprang out. Then, from all sides of the clearing, a dozen or so people appeared as if they had been waiting.
Judging by the fact that only about half of them escaped my spiritual senses, the level of the people attending Dark Dust Market was not as low as I had expected.
After exchanging a meaningful look with my brother, I too leapt forward, and as if we had been the last to arrive, the trading began at once.
“The item I offer is this Hidden Immortal Needle! So thin it is almost invisible to the naked eye, yet it carries a deadly poison powerful enough to kill two or three sturdy men with a single needle.”
It was not quite a magical instrument used by cultivators, but neither was it something you could simply buy on the street.
“For that, this amount of spirit stone powder should be enough, what do you say? This much is worth at least three or four spirit stones.”
Since I also had spirit stones with me, I became interested when someone else offered a price in spirit stone powder. It let me roughly judge the value of the stones I carried.
“If they were intact spirit stones, I would of course agree, but isn’t that just the residue left after refining? Compared to that, this Hidden Immortal Needle seems far more precious.”
“Ho ho, you’re being too greedy. Where in this world would you find a cultivator willing to exchange a proper spirit stone for something that isn’t even a magical instrument? I’m the only one here generous enough to offer this much.”
So the value of one spirit stone was much higher than I had thought. If the spirit stones in my pouch were truly in the dozens, then I was sitting on quite a fat purse myself.
“Ahem. I may be taking a slight loss, but there’s nothing for it.”
After glancing around and checking the reactions of the others, the seller of the Hidden Immortal Needle finally began the exchange for spirit stone powder, and as soon as their trade ended, someone else stepped forward.
“This Suppressing Light Stone was originally a thing that contained a very powerful lightning attribute. Even now, the remaining lightning essence within it is no small matter.”
My brother, standing beside me, then leaned over and whispered in my ear.
“Looks like the people from the Artifact Workshop picked today to show up. Just look at all the byproducts left over after refinement they brought. What we really wanted was for someone from the Alchemy Pavilion to bring a whole pile of Clear Harmony Pills.”
It seemed my brother was quite disappointed in the trades taking place now.
In truth, I felt the same. The items being exchanged were nothing compared to the red elixir we had brought, and since we had even gone to the trouble of cross-dressing to come here, the disappointment only deepened.
Still, instead of showing my frustration, I kept my eyes on the cultivators who remained silently in place.
Even though the trade had already begun, I could feel that those who showed no reaction were far stronger than the cultivators chattering away right now.
Then, just as I was slowly scanning the ones who said nothing, my gaze met that of someone who had been watching me.
Unlike most of the others, who wore rough wooden masks with the grain still plainly visible, this one wore a carefully polished black wooden mask. Judging by his unusual appearance, he seemed to enjoy drawing attention to himself very much.
Yet despite his carefully maintained outward appearance, his actual strength was pathetic. He seemed little different from my second brother, who still remained at the first stage of Qi Refining.
After staring back at the insignificant fellow for a moment, I soon turned my gaze elsewhere.
And then, in the sweep of my wandering eyes, I caught sight of another cultivator whose aura was considerably heavier. Unlike the previous one, he wore the same plain, rough wooden mask as everyone else, but an expansive, imposing presence was leaking from him—something no wooden mask could possibly conceal.
At the very least, he was in the late stage of Qi Refining. Perhaps he might even be at Foundation Establishment.
If there was anyone here who wanted to buy the red elixir we had brought, it would surely be that cultivator. And as if he sensed the confidence in my gaze, he too turned to look this way.
In that instant, I felt a slight unease. It was not because his level could not be hidden even beneath plain clothes, but because of the meaning behind the soft line of his neck as he turned his head.
If my second brother and I had dressed as women to conceal our identities, then that cultivator was a woman dressed as a man to conceal hers.
For a moment, she met my eyes, and just as the unremarkable trade before her ended, she immediately ignored my gaze and spoke.
“It seems our Dao companions are keeping the good goods hidden away and haven’t brought them out yet. At this rate, dawn will break before long. Now then, why don’t you bring out something decent? If you have a fire-attribute elixir or magical instrument, I’ll pay generously.”
Then the black mask produced something rather amusing.
“Right now, the senior cultivators of our sect have all jointly posted high merit rewards for fire-attribute elixirs. Why would something like that turn up here? If there had been any decent fire-attribute items, they’d already have been traded away for high merit points at the mission hall.”
What a pitiful fool, chattering as though only the things he knew were the truth.
Still, his words did contain an important piece of information. The many requests for fire-attribute elixirs recently posted in the mission hall sounded as if they might have a different purpose altogether.
Come to think of it, the fire-attribute spiritual herb I once had, Red Blossom Root, had also been exchanged for a far higher merit value than its original worth. If I considered that, this had clearly been going on for quite some time.
Perhaps Master Blue Purity knew something about it, but unfortunately he was not the kind of person who was passionate about teaching us. If anything, he was more intent on finding what was hidden in the Eastern expedition of that Golden Core-level cultivator discovered years ago.
Then a thought suddenly struck me. Right now, many of the senior cultivators in Hyeondo Sect were absorbed in the secrets of that Golden Core cultivator’s expedition. If the thing they needed was a fire-attribute elixir, then there might well be some connection between the two.
But that thought did not last long. The female cultivator soon answered the black mask’s words.
“Everyone has their own circumstances, so who knows? Isn’t that right, Dao companions?”
When she finished speaking, she slowly swept her gaze over the people gathered at Dark Dust Market. It was a pressure, silent but unmistakable, urging anyone with a fire-attribute elixir to bring it out.
Then, just as my second brother hesitated and was about to bring up our red elixir, someone else spoke first.
“I have a handful of Flame Serpent Hair. I originally set it aside to make a magical instrument I intended to use later, but if you’re willing to pay generously, I’m prepared to let it go. It’s the mane hair of a serpent beast that had reached the early stage of Qi Refining, so it is absolutely not the kind of material you can easily obtain.”
Flame Serpent Hair… That caught my interest a little too. Not because I had any use for the item he described, but because I had never even seen a serpent with a mane before.
As I watched him with interest, the female cultivator who had heard him spoke with pleasant surprise.
“I’d need to check how much energy remains in the Flame Serpent Hair to determine the exact price, but for something like that, I can offer at least one Clear Harmony Pill.”
It seemed she really was the Alchemy Pavilion member we had been waiting for. The Clear Harmony Pill she offered as payment was exactly the supply elixir we wanted.
“Good! If you’ll give me a Clear Harmony Pill, then I’ll hand over this Flame Serpent Hair right now.”
At her words, the cultivator promptly took out a leather pouch he had carefully wrapped and held it out from his chest.
But what emerged from the pouch was not even a handful—just a few strands of red hair. As expected of Dark Dust Market, a place where the greedy within the sect gathered, he had made an absurdly shameless demand.
At last, the woman’s expression hardened as she raised her voice.
“Are you trying to make a fool of me, Dao companion? You expect me to offer a precious Clear Harmony Pill for something like that? How, in any world, is that a handful?”
Because her voice had risen, the feminine tone she had been carefully maintaining sounded awkward now, but no one here paid it any mind. The anger in her voice caused the spiritual energy around us to press down on everyone gathered there in an instant.
At least Foundation Establishment!
As the other party revealed her true strength in earnest, I revised my estimate of her level upward.
“Dao companion! If you dislike the Dao companion, you need not carry out this trade, but you must not threaten others in Dark Dust Market!”
Once the white mask, seemingly the organizer of the market, stepped in to stop her, the pressure slowly faded from the area.
But just because the weight of spiritual energy had disappeared did not mean the heavy atmosphere she had created was gone as well.
The one who had so arrogantly tried to trick her with a mere few strands of Flame Serpent Hair was still trembling in terror. Their trade had already broken down, but now the situation had changed so that no one dared speak rashly.
At that, I glanced toward my second brother, and before I could even make eye contact with him, he unexpectedly spoke in a composed voice.
“If Dao companion has enough Clear Harmony Pills, I have something I would like to show you.”
Though it irritated me that he was still mimicking a woman’s voice, it was a surprisingly bold move—one I had never expected from him.
But my admiration for that unexpected display lasted only a moment. When the female cultivator gestured as though to say, let’s see what you have, my second brother—who had already taken our red elixir from me—placed it back into my hands.
“Go on. Show it to her.”